Wednesday, October 04, 2017

Nikola Tesla and Technology Rules

Have We Lost Control Of Our Computers?


“The problem is that we are attempting to build systems that are beyond our ability to intellectually manage... The problem is that programmers are having a hard time keeping up with their own creations. Since the 1980s, the way programmers work and the tools they use have changed remarkably little. There is a small but growing chorus that worries the status quo is unsustainable." … [Read More]




Webrecorder is both a tool to create high-fidelity, interactive web archives of any web site you browse and a platform to make those recordings accessible.” 

Ikea has bought TaskRabbit Recode. Now Ikea won’t have to include Allen wrenches in its flat-packs. That alone should pay for the task rabbits doing the assembly. Finally a sharing economy deal that makes sense.
Interfaces Are Killing Us: It’s Time Technology Gets Out of the Way – “We are killing our ability to think”


God Is a Bot, and Anthony Levandowski Is His Messenger Wired. The Silicon Valley elite are crazypants. Who knew?


ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Do You Need A Blockchain?
Public blockchains are a tremendous improvement on traditional databases if the things you worry most about are censorship and universal access. Under those circumstances, it might just be worth it to build on a technology that sacrifices cost, speed, privacy, and predictability. And if that sacrifice isn’t worth it, a more limited version of Satoshi Nakamoto’s original blockchain may balance out your needs. But you should also consider the possibility that you don’t need a blockchain at all

The age of the unhealthy executive.
WHAT WE'RE READING: "If the symptoms of executives’ work habits were the product of an infectious disease, that disease would be quickly eradicated. The government would spend millions of dollars and deploy all the resources at its disposal." (Jonathan Cawte)





A hacking tool linked to the NSA continues to be used by cybercriminals in efforts to remotely steal money and confidential information from online banking users, according to research conducted by U.S. cybersecurity firm Proofpoint. In a recent blogpost by company researchers, Proofpoint said it had discovered two different banking trojans in the wild with computer code taken from a now publicly available exploit known as “EternalBlue,” or CVE-2017-0144. EternalBlue is believed to have been used by the NSA to gather intelligence.



Ars Technica

There's a bug in the latest version of Internet Explorer that leaks the addresses, search terms, or any other text typed into the address bar. The bug allows any currently visited website to view any text entered into the address bar as soon as the user hits enter.



SC Magazine

Every security and criminal threat that the FBI faces has a cyber or tech component that is increasing in frequency and sophistication, presenting tremendous challenges for FBI investigators, the bureau's director, Christopher Wray, told members of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Wednesday. We face sophisticated cyber threats from foreign intelligence agencies, hackers for hire, organized crime syndicates, and terrorists. Threat actors—foreign intelligence agencies, organized groups, terrorists and hackers for hire—“constantly seek to access and steal our nation's classified information, trade secrets, technology, and ideas—all of which are of great importance to our national and economic security,” Wray said in his opening statement, noting that critical infrastructure and the U.S. economy are in their crosshairs. “The frequency and impact of cyberattacks on our nation's private sector and government networks have increased dramatically in the past decade and are expected to continue to grow,” as is reporting of malicious activity, gauged “by the amount of corporate data stolen or deleted, personally identifiable information compromised, or remediation costs incurred by U.S. victims.”





The Hill


September 28, 2017

The Senate passed legislation Thursday that would require the federal government to offer more tools to small businesses to guard their networks from cyber threats.



CRS – Who Regulates Whom? An Overview of the U.S. Financial Regulatory Framework, August 17. 2017.
“The financial regulatory system has been described as fragmented, with multiple overlapping regulators and a dual state-federal regulatory system. The system evolved piecemeal, punctuated by major changes in response to various historical financial crises. The most recent financial crisis also resulted in changes to the regulatory system through the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010 (Dodd-Frank Act; P.L. 111-203) and the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 (HERA; P.L. 110-289). To address the fragmented nature of the system, the Dodd-Frank Act created the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), a council of regulators and experts chaired by the Treasury Secretary. At the federal level, regulators can be clustered in the following areas: Depository regulators—Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), and Federal Reserve for banks; and National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) for credit unions; Securities markets regulators—Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC); Government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) regulators—Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), created by HERA, and Farm Credit Administration (FCA); and Consumer protection regulator—Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), created by the Dodd-Frank Act. These regulators regulate financial institutions, markets, and products using licensing, registration, rulemaking, supervisory, enforcement, and resolution powers…”


“EPIC has sent statements to Congress ahead of hearings in the House and Senate on the Equifax data breach. EPIC underscored the risk to American consumers of data breaches which are increasingly severe. EPIC urged Congress to require prompt data breach notification, data minimization, and privacy enhancing techniques. In 2011 EPIC testified in the House and Senate on data breaches in the financial services sector. EPIC President Marc Rotenberg recently outlined in the Harvard Business Review steps Congress should now take to protect American consumers.”